Ohio’s elections chief says he wants the full appellate court to review a federal judge’s ruling that expands the swing state’s voting schedule this fall.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the order on Wednesday.

In a Sept. 4 decision, U.S. District Judge Peter Economus temporarily blocked an Ohio law trimming early voting and ordered Secretary of State Jon Husted to set additional times, including evening hours. The order moved the start of early voting to Tuesday instead of Oct. 7.

Husted says elected officials and not federal judges should be making Ohio law.

Voting rights groups and others had claimed the law and another early voting measure would make it difficult for residents to vote and disproportionately affect low-income and black voters.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and other civil rights groups are challenging a directive from the state's elections chief that sets uniform voting times. They're also seeking to overturn a law that eliminated days when residents can both register to vote and cast an early ballot.

A federal judge in Ohio plans to hear arguments on when voters can cast an early ballot in the presidential battleground state.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and other civil rights groups are challenging a directive from the state’s elections chief that sets uniform voting times.

They’re also seeking to overturn a law that eliminated days when residents can both register to vote and cast an early ballot.

The groups contend the changes will make it difficult for residents to vote and will unfairly affect black voters. They want the judge Monday to block the law from being enforced during this fall’s election and want the secretary of state to issue a new schedule.

Republican backers of the measures say Ohioans still have plenty of time to vote.

Ohio’s elections chief has issued an order requiring all poll workers to undergo mandatory training before the fall election.

State law already requires new poll workers to go through training before they work an election. Retraining is required at a minimum of every three years for those who have previously worked at the polls.

The directive issued Tuesday by Secretary of State Jon Husted would require training for every poll worker this year, regardless of previous experience. He says the state’s 88 county elections boards would have access to $760,000 in grants to help offset training costs.

Husted says in a statement that about 40,000 poll workers are needed on Election Day, and his directive will ensure that all poll workers are ready for the Nov. 4 election.

Ohio’s elections chief has issued new early voting hours for the final days before Election Day following a federal judge’s order last week.

Voters in the battleground state will get a total of 18 hours to vote in person on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before presidential primaries and presidential and gubernatorial general elections.

Secretary of State Jon Husted on Tuesday directed Ohio’s 88 county elections boards to be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday; and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday for the major contests.

Husted also set hours on the final days for municipal, primary and special elections.

His directive follows a federal ruling in a 2012 lawsuit filed by President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and Democrats.

Fewer than 2 million of Ohioâ€™s nearly 8 million registered voters are expected to cast ballots in today’s primary election. And many of those who do get ballots will find just issues — no candidatesâ€™ names — on them.

A new organization Ohio voters pushing to change that.

Technically, Ohio has no independent voters. It has nonpartisan voters â€“ people who have never asked for a party ballot in a primary and are content in those spring elections to vote only on issues.

Once they pull a Democratic or Republican ballot, they belong to that party.

Cynthia Capathios moved to Canton from New York by way of California. She now heads a group called Independent Ohio and she says she got involved because she was tired of being left out says she isnâ€™t willing to sign up and is tired of feeling left out.

â€œIt wasnâ€™t that I was a little bit of one and a little bit of another. It was more that they really fully didnâ€™t represent me, and I felt that we needed to do something different, something news.â€

So whatâ€™s she looking for?

â€œA different of a system that isnâ€™t so overwhelmingly dictated by the parties. Weâ€™re not against parties and weâ€™re not against people being in the parties but against them being the arbitrators and being able to run the show. The political power is more in their hands than in the hands of the voters.â€

She says that would include an open, nonpartisan primary, in which the top two vote-getters have a runoff.

â€œThat would be really opening up the field.â€

She acknowledges Ohioâ€™s lawmakers may not be receptive to that, so, â€œI think this could come to a referendum in Ohio and voters could vote it in. Actually how it happened in California.â€

But sheâ€™s not passing petitions yet.

â€œI donâ€™tâ€™ think that enough people know about it yet. I think we need to bring more awareness to it so when we do get to that point, the people will understand it better and wonâ€™t be scared off of it, because I do think that the powers that are in place right now arenâ€™t going to be thrilled by having it changed.â€

Part of that awareness is informational picketing the group has planned for the Ohio Secretary of Stateâ€™s office tomorrow, primary election day.

â€œThe secretary of state is the one who has a lot of power over the elections and so â€¦ we are working to make ourselves visible to him, to our legislators, to all voters.

â€œI think independents are a big part of our voters. Nationally, 42 percent identify as independent, according to a Gallup Poll that was done in January 2014. At the last gubernatorial election, 68 percent of the voters in Ohio were unaffiliated. These are huge numbers. And we are kind of invisible.â€

Thatâ€™s Cynthia Carpathios of a group called Independent Ohio. The group is affiliated with a national organization called independentvoting.org.

]]>http://wosu.org/2012/news/2014/05/06/independent-voters-to-protest-todays-primary/feed/0election 2014,independent voters,jon husted,ohio,primary election,secretary of stateCynthia Capathios heads a group called Independent Ohio. She says she got involved because she was tired of being left out says she isnâ€™t willing to sign up and is tired of feeling left out.Cynthia Capathios heads a group called Independent Ohio. She says she got involved because she was tired of being left out says she isnâ€™t willing to sign up and is tired of feeling left out.WOSU Newsno3:51Libertarians Fight Order To Remove Them From Ballothttp://wosu.org/2012/news/2014/03/10/libertarians-fight-order-to-remove-them-from-ballot/
http://wosu.org/2012/news/2014/03/10/libertarians-fight-order-to-remove-them-from-ballot/#commentsMon, 10 Mar 2014 12:30:29 +0000Karen Kaslerhttp://wosu.org/2012/news/?p=67297

Two Libertarians being removed from Ohioâ€™s May primary ballot have filed a legal challenge against the state.

Secretary of State Jon Husted announced Friday that Libertarians Charlie Earl and Steven Linnabary wonâ€™t be on the May ballot in the races for governor and attorney general, respectively.

The decision comes after hearings last week to protest the signatures that got them there. The ruling was a main topic of the Libertariansâ€™ convention this weekend in Columbus, where Charlie Earl was one of the headline speakers.

â€œWe filed in federal court on Friday night,” Earl says. “And we filed that this is a First Amendment abridgment of our rights to nominate our candidates. And what weâ€™re talking about the primary.

“They invalidated us for the primary and we felt Libertarians ought to have a right to choose who their candidates are despite what has been described by some as an immaterial oversight.â€

That â€œoversightâ€ was the non-disclosure by two people hired to gather signatures that they were in fact being paid.

Husted says his decision came from hearing officer Brad Smithâ€™s conclusion that the signatures were invalid because paid circulators need to disclose whoâ€™s paying them. While Earl acknowledged that this costly mistake canâ€™t happen again if Libertarians want to be contenders in elections, he says voters will suffer if Libertarians stay off the ballot.

â€œIt was an oversight. It wasnâ€™t an intentional deceit. It was an oversight. Somebody didnâ€™t fill out the back of the petition form.

“Iâ€™ll deal with it,”Earl said about the possibility of not being able to run. “Iâ€™m an adult. Iâ€™ll go home and work on the farm. But I do believe the people of Ohio deserve a choice. And itâ€™s not me. Itâ€™s the message, not the messenger that counts here.â€

Libertarians claim their message is that theyâ€™re an alternative to both major political parties â€“ but certainly Republicans and Democrats were watching this situation.

But lawyers for those protesting the Libertariansâ€™ place on the ballot had said circulators were paid by Democrats who wanted a conservative in the race against incumbent John Kasich. Libertarians admit they worked with Democrats, but say they also helped Democrat groups with their signature gathering efforts on a same-sex marriage amendment.

Meanwhile, Libertarians claimed the protests were backed by Republicans who feared their candidates – Earl in particular. Republicans have said they werenâ€™t involved in the protest filings.

The Ohio Secretary of State’s office is launching a new initiative to let businesses file more required state paperwork online.

Secretary of State Jon Husted planned to announce more details Friday. His office says it’s part of the continuing effort to cut through red tape and welcome businesses in the state.

All entities doing business in Ohio are required to register with Husted’s office if they operate under a title other than a person’s name.

Husted also has incorporated more online tools in changes he’s made as the state’s elections chief. Before the presidential election last November, he began allowing registered voters to update their addresses online. In March, he announced an online search tool to help Ohioans more easily check their voter registration information.

A federal judge has extended a 2010 court decree that governs Ohio’s provisional ballots and voter identification requirements, which voter advocates say has kept elections from becoming the “Wild West.”

The agreement ensures that election officials count votes cast provisionally when voters use the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley said Monday. He extended the order until the end of 2016, after the next presidential election in the battleground state.

Marbley said that without the decree, “there is nothing to prevent boards of election from returning to those haphazard and, in some cases, illegal practices, which previously resulted in the invalidation of validly cast ballots from registered voters.”

The case stems from a 2006 state law that specified when provisional ballots could be counted toward vote totals. Under the law, a person who provided the last four digits of his or her Social Security number could vote provisionally. Advocates for homeless voters challenged the law in a federal complaint that year. And in 2010, then-Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, the state’s top elections official, entered into the consent decree.

The decree included more options for provisional ballots and voter ID. For example, it incorporated a directive from Brunner that allows letters from public universities to serve as government documents for voting purposes. In addition, it defined “current” as a document issued within a year immediately preceding the date of the election in which a person seeks to vote.

The decree was set to expire June 30, but the judge granted a temporary extension while the court weighed arguments in the case.

Voter advocates had asked the judge to extend the decree indefinitely or at least until 2021. Marbley said an indefinite extension wasn’t supported by law.

A lawyer representing homeless voters argued before court in Columbus last month that without the decree, the state would return to the “Wild West,” in which county election boards could apply vague requirements and some voters would be disenfranchised.

Secretary of State Jon Husted argued against the extension, saying there’s no evidence that a single Ohioan would be denied the right to vote if the decree expired.

Husted’s attorneys told the judge last month that the decree wasn’t necessary, and Husted is committed to following the rules it sets out.

Marbley noted that secretaries of state change frequently, and there’s no guarantee a Husted successor would make the same commitment.

“A citizen’s right to vote, however, cannot be at the mercy of the shifting legal interpretations of a single state officer, no matter how well intentioned he or she is,” he wrote.

Arguing for the extension, Cleveland attorney Subodh Chandra said in court filings that without the order, homeless and poor voters who lack identification would in effect have to pay a “poll tax” to cast a ballot because they’d have to pay for proper identification.

But attorneys for the state said the advocates’ “strained” reading of the law was incorrect.

“Ohio law mandates that any otherwise eligible voter who fails to present ID is permitted to cast a provisional ballot using the last four digits of his or her” Social Security number, they wrote in court filings.

Chandra also argued that Husted never issued sworn testimony or provided evidence to show he would uphold the decree guidelines.

Chandra represents the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless. The Ohio Democratic Party also has joined them as a plaintiff.

Marbley, who is black, grew up in the South and received his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina. He has often spoken of the importance of voting rights to him personally based on events he saw growing up.

Dem. State Senator Nine Turner has been a state senator since 2008 and is known for the passionate style of her floor speeches. Before that, she was the first black woman to represent Ward 1 on the Cleveland City Council.

A fiery state senator from Cleveland has launched a campaign to unseat Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted next year.

Democrat Nina Turner announced her decision Monday at an event in Cleveland.

Joined by community and elected officials, Turner said she wants to assure all votes are counted. State Rep. Nickie Antonio, a Lakewood Democrat, said Turner would “make Ohio the shining example of fair elections and voting rights.”

Turner has been a state senator since 2008 and is known for the passionate style of her floor speeches. Before that, she was the first black woman to represent Ward 1 on the Cleveland City Council.

She faces an uphill battle against Husted, a well-funded Republican who’s previously served as a state senator and Speaker of the Ohio House.